2008 Wheels of Wonder Bikes to Kenya  

Wheels of Wonder Bikes to Kenya

Video Report

ODFL organizes a collection of over 300 bikes to send to Kenya.

In April 2008, two high schools in California held a used bicycle collection. The idea was to collect bikes to send to students in Africa. The idea came from ODFL's trip to Kenya in summer 2007 where the American students learned that African students regularly spent 2 or more hours walking each way to school each day. Not only was the time a huge burden, so was the calorie burn. It prevented many students from being able to go to school at all.

So, on the students' return, ODFL chapters at Los Altos High School and Gunn High School got together and proposed a solution to their communities. ODFL would rent an ocean-going shipping container and send it to ODFL's partner in Kenya, SEANet. The project would be called "Wheels of Wonder" or "WoW." SEANet would work with local schools to rehabilitate and distribute the bikes to students there. Los Altos and Gunn High Schools are only three miles apart so cooperation on this end was simple.

To help with the organization in their communities, both schools worked with their local Kiwanis Clubs which had Key Club chapters in each school. Students at each school not only organized their respective schools to bring in bicycles, they hand delivered 2,500 flyers to each community announcing the drive. Click on the flyer thumbnail on the left for a larger version of the poster. They also hung 250 larger posters in local businesses who supported the drive.

It all came together on April 5th when ODFL, Key Club, Kiwanis, and many other organizations began loading the container at 8:00 a.m. By 10:00 a.m. it was clear the container would be filled so the students had to make a decision on whether to continue accepting more bikes. They decided they would. By the end of the day, they had collected 452 bicycles of all descriptions: road bikes and mountain bikes; adult and child; working and not working.

They also got donations of 500 used pairs of soccer shoes and 23 soccer balls that were included in the shipment. The container that ODFL had rented held 315 bicycles and was shipped to Kenya through the port of Oakland. The other 137 bicycles were donated to a local bicycle retailer, Mike's Bikes, who was organizing its own shipment to Botswana. Both containers have since arrived in their destinations. Pictures of the bicycles arriving in Kenya are below.

Most of the bicycles would have ended up in landfills in America. According to Macheru Karuku, Executive Director of SEANet, "WoW has the potential to have a very large impact on the entire continent of Africa."

First opening of container in Kenya

Wheels of Wonder Project Banner

Shoes donated along with bikes

Volunteers / Bike recipients in Kenya

More photos

June 2009 Update - In the town of Nanyuki in Kenya, donated bike organizers have developed a program where every Saturday and Sunday they let poor children ride the 48 donated bikes they received.  They get over 300 children come and so allow them 5 minute apiece.  They stay for hours to be able to ride. The rider in the green below is a professional cyclist who used one of our bikes in a race in Rwanda where he placed 2nd. He's something of a local hero.  He conducts cycling clinics to teach the kids to ride.